The components of well-being and psychological pain via emotion factor in adolescents from the experts’ point of view: A qualitative study

Adolescence is an important developmental stage and emotion is an important factor in determining psychological well-being and an important process in the development of psychological disorders. The aim is the components of well-being, psychological pain variables via the emotion factor in adolescents from the experts’ point of view. The type of study is qualitative. The statistical population includes experts in the area of emotion. Ten experts were selected purposefully, and data were collected through semi-structured interviews. The data were analyzed using fuzzy Delphi method. The results revealed that among the primary indicators for emotion regulation variable, the components of mutual behaviors, the way of regulating bullying behaviors and self-focus, for psychological pain, the components of mental control ability, mental conflict and mental wandering, for well-being, the components of life planning, constructive interaction and attention to personal characteristics, and for emotion, the components of emotional conflict and emotional affectivity were removed.
Introduction
Adolescence is an important period of physiological, emotional, social and psychological growth (Kazemi, 2015). Extensive changes in various aspects of adolescents’ lives create a critical stage (Kazemi, 2015). Adolescents experience more daily problems, more negative emotions and less positive emotions and more emotional fluctuations (Larson and Ham, 1993). Emotions are known with two dimensions of positive and negative emotions (Malki Majd, 2015). Adolescents use different emotions in their daily activities (Taghipour, et al, 2019). When faced with stressful events, emotions must be regulated (Qara Daghi, et al, 2017). Emotion regulation refers to the cognitive way of managing and manipulating the entry of information recalled by emotion (Sharifi Bastan, et al, 2015).
Emotion regulation strategies can affect psychological well-being. Adolescents who have high psychological well-being act more successfully when faced with stressful factors, while low psychological well-being leads to emotional problems (Karimifar, et al, 2016). Another variable is psychological pain. Orbach et al. (2003) have described psychological pain as a wide range of mental experiences that are characterized by the perception of negative changes in oneself and performance, accompanied by strong negative emotions (Karami, et al, 2018). Given the important role that emotions and the cognitive emotion regulation in adolescence on the psychological well-being and psychopathology of adolescents, the study in this area can help to expand knowledge. Thus, the present study seeks to identify the components of well-being, psychological pain through the emotion factor (positive and negative affect, cognitive emotion regulation for everyday activities) in adolescents from the experts’ point of view. The present study seeks to answer the question of what are the components of well-being and psychological pain via emotion factor in adolescents from the experts’ point of view.
Methodology
The present study was conducted with the aim of identifying the components of well-being and psychological pain via the emotion factor in adolescents from the experts' point of view using a qualitative approach and a fuzzy Delphi method. The Fuzzy Delphi method is a structured process for collecting and classifying the knowledge by a group of experts through the distribution of questionnaires among the experts and the controlled feedback of the received answers. This method is done with the participation of people who have knowledge and expertise in the subject of research. The validity of the results depends on the competence and skill of these people. Fuzzy Delphi technique can be used to identify and screen the most important decision-making indicators. In the present study, by reviewing the theoretical background and also the opinions of the supervisors, some hypothetical models were developed, and by integrating the models, a final conceptual model was obtained. Then, we entered into a semi-structured interview with the experts with 4 descriptive questions about the approval, development and criticism of the model. The experts were selected and entered the project through purposeful sampling. The inclusion criteria for experts was being a faculty member and at least be a candidate for assistant professor, have a good reputation in the area of health and adolescence, and having at least 10 written articles in the considered areas (emotion, adolescence, and health). Ten people were selected among the experts, and after a semi-structured interview with these experts, the content of the interview was analyzed. The method of data analysis was also using fuzzy Delphi method.
Results
After determining the criterion indicators of the research variables, a pairwise matrix was calculated to determine the weight of different parameters. To defuzzify the weight of the indicators, the geometric mean of the components of the fuzzy number of parameters’ weight was obtained and the weight of the parameters was expressed as a definite number:
In the variable of cognitive emotion regulation, the component of blaming others has the highest weight with a weight of 0.1035 The mean of indicators is 0.0825 The components of transaction and the way of regulating bullying behaviors are below mean level and should be removed, and the components of self-blame, acceptance, rumination, positive refocusing, refocusing on planning, positive reappraisal, putting into perspective, catastrophizing and other-blame were approved. In the psychological pain variable, the component of non-changeability with a weight of 0.1077 had the highest weight. The mean of indicators was 0.1111 The components of the ability to control mind, mental conflicts and mental wandering are below the mean level and should be removed, and the components of narcissism/worthlessness, emotional wandering, dryness, alienation, confusion, social distancing and emptiness were approved.
In the well-being variable, the master of the environment component has the highest weight with a weight of 0.13477 The mean of indicators is 0.1111 The components of life planning, constructive interaction, and attention to personal characteristics are below mean and should be removed, and the components of personal growth, mastery of the environment, self-acceptance, autonomy, positive relationships with others, and purposefulness were approved. In the affect variable, the positive affect component had the highest weight with a weight of 0.3207 The mean of indicators is 0.2498 The components of emotional conflict and emotional affectivity are below the mean and should be removed, and the components of positive affect and negative emotion were approved.
Discussion and conclusion
Based on the aim, the components of the variables were identified from the theoretical literature, and after interviewing the experts, the components of emotional conflict and emotional affectivity to the variable of emotion, transactions, the way of regulating bullying behaviors and self-control to the variable of emotion regulation, mind control ability, mental conflict and mental wandering to the psychological pain variable and life planning, constructive interaction and attention to personal characteristics to the well-being variable were added.  Finally, with the fuzzy Delphi method, the added components were removed and 26 components from 4 variables were approved. Based on the results, the final conceptual model was confirmed. The results were consistent with those of studies conducted by Lennarz et al. (2019) and Safara and Salamabadi (2021). Due to the spread of the coronavirus, it was not possible to interview more experts in person. It is recommended to design different conceptual models and investigate other variables in future studies.